Responsibility In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, follows the journey of a father and a son who are faced with the struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. The two main characters are faced with endeavors that test a core characteristic of their beings: their responsibilities to themselves and to the world around them. This responsibility drives every action between the characters of the novel and manifests in many different ways. Responsibility is shown through three key interactions: the man to the boy, the boy to the man, and the boy to the rest of the world. It is this responsibility that separates McCarthy’s book from those of the same genre.
The man believes his purpose is to guide the boy to safety and to protect his child. He makes his decisions solely based upon the boy’s needs and security rather than his own. One may say his responsibility to the boy is slightly demented by the man’s constant feud with himself regarding the possibility of killing his son to save the boy from pain. However, this only strengthens the point by showing the man is willing to do anything to allow his son to have opportunities with the best outcome, even if that outcome is death. Decisions such as this are nearly inevitable in a world portrayed by McCarthy,

and one able to come to rational conclusions regarding such topics for those they love shows deep strength and devotion.
Like the man, the boy feels a responsibility to care for his father.

The boy comprehends the severity of the situations he is faced with, such as lack of food or water, and treats his father with the same respect and equality that the man gives him. He insists on sharing his portions with his father when they are uneven, and he remains cautious at all times, even when his father is not. The boy’s fire is fueled by his love for his father, which is shown by the boy’s priority on caring for his father’s wellbeing, just as the man does for him. This love and responsibility, manifesting in the form of self-sacrifice and compassion, lies in direct juxtaposition to the rest of the world, where selfishness and indifference reigns

supreme.
Unlike the man, the boy carries his compassion to the strangers he meets in this novel. While the father is wary of others in this desolate world, the boy’s humbleness allows for him to see the good in everyone, including those who have wronged him. The boy begins to lose the belief that he and his father are the “good guys” when his father fails to provide help to others and treats strangers with a severity that compares to that of a roadagent. The boy believes that anyone who carries the fire has a duty to help and treat others, and that it is one’s obligation to show the same level of love and fairness given to their loved ones to the entirety of humanity.
The man and the boy lead their life by the virtue of responsibility. This virtue gives the pair a purpose in the bleak reality of the new world. By their actions’ underlying meanings, the two find motivation to push through the misery they call life, and survive. Without the responsibility between the characters this novel would revert to the same format as any other post-apocalyptic world story.